Many articles about diabetes appear daily, many of them very interesting. The intent here is to make some of these available for others who may not see them or have bypassed them. I will try to comment briefly on those I have grouped or on an individual article. This is not guaranteed to be a daily post, but I hope that this will give you ideas for your own research or blog posts. Please talk to your doctor about medical problems.

15 October 2013

Hospital Protocols Hinder Care

Hospital protocols do hinder and actually harm patients. I had a
hard time believing the first part of this doctor's blog until I
realized he was not joking. My next thought was why a hospital would
treat a doctor in this manner. I would have guessed that a doctor
and even a doctor's family would be expressed to the head of the
line. I am happy to see that they receive the same poor treatment as
the rest of us.

It is a shame that a few patients have required the need for
hospitals to enforce strict protocols such as name and personal
information before treatment can start. I understand the need for
medical information to avoid allergic reactions and medical
complications with medications the person is already taking. Yet,
patients often arrive unconscious and unable to communicate and they
are treated. I can appreciate the need for triage as the most
serious patients should go to the head of the treatment line and that
should never be disputed. Even this gets complaints from those that
feel they are totally privileged and better than the rest.

In a way, it is probably the most fun way to spend a day sitting
in an emergency department. It is surprising what happens and does
not happen. This happened by accident one day when my daughter
injured herself and my wife had taken her to the emergency
department. I got there as soon as I was notified, but was refused
to see my daughter because she was in treatment. After treatment was
completed, I did not see my wife and daughter being moved to the
hospital room since the exit used by patients was not visible from
the waiting area, which I had been moved into.

This was before cell phones. There were mobile phones, but few
people could afford them. So there I was, probably less than 40 feet
from my wife and daughter and unable to have anyone look for them.
In some ways, this seemed to be a hospital trick to keep families
separated. Finally two of us decided to leave the emergency
department and go into the hospital since we had not seen any of our
families leave. Yes, both of our families had members admitted and
we were not notified. For some reason they would admit that my
daughter had been admitted to the hospital, but would not tell me
which room. If it were not for my wife entering the hallway and upon
seeing me, coming to get me, neither of us would have known. It
turned out that his wife was in the same room as my daughter.

After some time we were able to convince our wives that we had
been there since before noon and been told that we would see them
later. The other fellow even guessed that they had been told that
they would be informed when we arrived. I finally had to take my
wife and his son down to show them the room where we had been kept.
Still waiting were five other people that had been there at the time
we were there. My wife knew one of the individuals and where his son
was in the hospital and the rest were advised to start looking
elsewhere in the hospital.

At that point, a nurse came by and asked that everyone be seated
and quiet. I am afraid I was less than polite when I asked why we
were being denied access to our families. I was told that they did
not want too many people in the exam rooms. I said that we were
still kept in the dark when our families were moved into the
hospital. They were told they would be notified when we arrived,
when we had been here for some time. At that point one of the
doctors walked by and could tell we were very upset. He wanted to
know what was happening. My wife spoke up and said the nurses were
causing family stress by separating us from our families. Instead of
notifying us when discharged from the ER or admitted to the hospital,
those that had been diverted to this room were not informed.

One of those was an executive for a large area corporation and
large employer and said that all contributions to this hospital would
stop immediately. Several others wanted to know who was responsible
for this and that the nurses on duty should all be removed from their
jobs. To this, I added the nurses that would not tell us where our
families were in the hospital. The doctor finally got quiet and
called the administrator to the room. It took another hour to sort
things out and supposedly get protocols corrected. The executive
said that he was sticking by his word since people were not being
held accountable for the mess and with the attitude of the staff
could not be ignored. The administrator wanted a private meeting,
but the executive said this would be an attempt to hide things from
these families. Everyone was taken to the nurse station to find out
if their relatives were admitted and even with the administrator
telling them to get the information; it took almost 30 minutes, as it
was clear, they were dragging their feet.

The local newspapers were notified and six months later, the
hospital was sold to another hospital and policies changed. It was
fortunate that our family did not need to use that hospital again and
moved to another town about four months later.

I would encourage everyone to read the blog by the doctor here and
another doctor about that doctor's blog here. It is a shame the
protocols established by some hospitals cause more stress and harm to
families than good will.

About Me

I am enjoying life, despite diabetes type 2. I am retired and enjoying the time I have for writing and photography. I was diagnosed with type 2 on Oct 2003, on oral meds for 4 months and they were doing nothing to really improve my daily readings. By cutting my carbohydrates I received the most improvement, but still not enough. Then I requested insulin, even though I did not like the thought of needles. That brought about the biggest change and A1c's in the lower 6's and upper 5's. Now I am working at maintaining them under 6.0 and hopefully nearer 5.5.